In New World, perks are how you fine tune your character to make them as efficient as possible. There's arguably not a better showcase of the power of the humble perk than with dealing big damage, as a character fully equipped with perks that compliment the character can take your deadliness in combat to a whole new level.
This guide, which covers every damaging perk in the game, is your one-stop-shop for all the information you'll need for aggressive perks. This includes what equipment slot they can be found on and a brief descriptor on what they do.
Read More: New World Rarity Guide: Every Item Rarity and Their Differences
What Are Damaging Perks?
A damaging perk provides a small bonus to your outgoing damage, and can be found on equipment that's of uncommon rarity or higher. This can come in the form of flat damage upgrades, or it can adjust damage through buffs, debuffs, and crowd control effects. While a single perk doesn't make a huge difference to how hard you hit, a full set of weapons, armour, and trinkets with the proper damaging perks can significantly impact the deadliness of your character.
Damaging Perks can be found randomly on gear you find and craft, and certain perks can be manually added to gear through gems. If you want to find certain damaging perks, you'll likely have to find or create multiple items to get the perfect perks you want.
Below we'll list out every damage perk you can find in New World, split into appropriate categories based on how they impact your attacks. We'll use the following format to convey important information about the perks:
- Perk Name: Brief description of what it does. What equipment it can be found on.
Additional Damage
These perks add an extra amount of damage to your attacks in the form of an elemental or physical damage type.
- Arcane Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Arcane damage. Found on rings.
- Fire Damage: Deal a small amount of additional fire damage. Found on rings.
- Ice Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Ice damage. Found on rings.
- Lightning Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Lightning damage. Found on rings.
- Nature Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Nature damage. Found on rings.
- Slash Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Slash damage. Found on rings.
- Strike Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Strike damage. Found on rings
- Thrust Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Thrust damage. Found on rings.
- Void Damage: Deal a small amount of additional Void damage. Found on rings.
Chain Attack Modifiers
These perks apply an additional damage modifier that spreads elemental damage to enemies in proximity to your target.
- Chain Arcane: On hit causes an arcane chain attack to bounce to nearby enemies. Found on both main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Chain Fire: On hit causes a fire chain attack to bounce to nearby enemies. Found on both main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Chain Ice: On hit causes an ice chain attack to bounce to nearby enemies. Found on both main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Chain Lightning: On hit causes a lightning chain attack to bounce to nearby enemies. Found on both main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Chain Nature: On hit causes a nature chain attack to bounce to nearby enemies. Found on both main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Chain Void: On hit causes a void chain attack to bounce to nearby enemies. Found on both main hand and two-handed weapons.
Conditional Damage Bonuses
The following perks grant extra damage as long as certain conditions, either for your enemy or yourself, are met.
- Brash: Deals extra damage to enemies with full health. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Cruel: Deals extra damage to enemies affected by crowd control. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Enchanted: Light and heavy attacks deal additional damage. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Exhilarate: Deals extra damage to enemies while you are below 30% health. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Gambit: Deals extra damage to enemies while your stamina bar isn't full. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Opportunist: Deals extra damage to enemies with less than 30%. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Rally: Deals extra damage and healing while at full health. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Retaliate: Deals extra damage to enemies after being hit three times. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Rogue: Deal additional backstab damage. Found on all melee weapons.
- Ruinous: Deal additional siege damage. Found on shields, main-handed weapons, and two-handed weapons.
- Vicious: Deals additional damage from critical hits. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Vorpal: Slightly improves headshot damage. Found on ranged weapons.
Critical Hit Bonuses
The following perks improve your chance to critical strike and provide bonuses upon landing a critical hit on an enemy.
- Keen: Gain a small amount of critical chance. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Keen Awareness: Gain a small amount of critical chance. Found on rings.
- Keen speed: On critical hit, gain a haste buff. Found on shields, main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
- Keenly Empowered: On critical hits, gain an empower buff. Found on shields, main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
- Keenly Fortified: On critical hits, gain fortify for a short period of time. Found on shields, main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
Damage Over Time Bonuses
These perks improve the effectiveness of damage over time (DOTS) by extending the amount of time a DOT stays active on enemies.
- Bloodletting: Applied bleeds last slightly longer. Found on rings.
- Burning: Applied burns last slightly longer. Found on rings.
- Crippling: Applied slows last slightly longer. Found on rings.
- Enfeebling: Applied weaken last slightly longer. Found on rings.
- Infected: Applied diseases last slightly longer. Found on rings.
- Poisoning: Applied poisons last slightly longer. Found on rings.
On-Hit Bonuses
These perks reward hits made against enemies with stat boosts or other bonuses.
- Leaching: Gain a small amount of damage dealt back as health (this is unaffected by consistent damage like burns) Found on rings.
- Life Stealing: Gain a small percentage of damage done as health, this doesn't work with damage-over-time effects. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Refreshing Move: Light and heavy attacks that hit reduce weapon cooldowns. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Siphoning: Gain a small amount of mana per hit on an enemy. Found on rings.
- Siphoning Blow (Ranks I): Gain a small amount of mana per hit on an enemy. Found on main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
On-Kill Bonuses
These perks grant temporary bonuses once you kill an enemy, which can be used to make yourself stronger for a short time.
- Mortal Lifesteal: Gain a small amount of health after you kill an enemy. Found on shields, main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Mortal Power: Grants empowered buff for a short period after you kill an enemy. Found on shields, main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Mortal Refreshment: Grants a reduction on all cooldowns after you kill an enemy. Found on shields, main hand and two-handed weapons.
- Mortal Siphoning: Grants a small amount of mana after you kill an enemy. Found on shields, main hand and two-handed weapons.
PvE Faction Bonuses
These perks provide boosts to damage when fighting specific enemies throughout New World.
- Ancient Bane: Increases damage to Ancients. Found on main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
- Angry Earth Bane: Increases damage to Angry Earth. Found on main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
- Beast Bane: Increases damage to Beasts. Found on main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
- Corrupted Bane: Increases damage to Corrupted. Found on main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
- Lost Bane: Increases damage to Lost. Found on main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
Weapon Damage Modifiers
These perks converts a portion of your total weapon damage into an alternative damage type.
- Abyssal: Converts a portion of your weapon damage into void damage. Found on main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Arboreal: Converts a portion of your weapon damage into nature damage. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Electrified: Converts a portion of your weapon damage into lighting damage. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Empowered: Converts a portion of your weapon damage into arcane damage. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Frozen: Converts a portion of your weapon damage into ice damage. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
- Ignited: Converts a portion of your weapon damage into fire damage. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.
Miscellaneous Perks
These perks provide bonuses that don't provide bonuses that increase your damage directly, but still are relevant to killing enemies.
- Plentiful Arrows (Ranks I): When you're hit by an arrow, you have a small chance of gaining an arrow in your bags. Found on bags.
- Plentiful Shells (Ranks I): When you're hit by a bullet, you have a small chance of gaining a bullet in your bags. Found on bags.
- Accuracy: Significantly improves accuracy. Found on ranged weapons.
- Lucky (Ranks I - IV): Increases chance to find rare loot in chests and from monsters. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons, armour, and trinkets.
- Luck (Ranks I - IV): Increases chance to find rare loot in chests and from monsters. Found on both shields, bags, armour, and trinkets.
That covers ever perk in the game that relates to dealing damage! If you'd like to read even more perky content, you can check out our defensive perks guide, our weapon perks guide, and our crafting perks pages. Once you've taken in the full scope of what perks can do for you in New World, there'll be nothing stopping you in the journey to create the perfect character!